Benjamin was born on a Thursday. By Sunday our family was hiking in the Sutter Buttes, the smallest mountain range in the world, and my childhood home. I find this land very life-giving. Our family needed to live. To love. To make it to Peace Valley in the heart of the Sutter Buttes.

We didn’t mean for Lacy to go with us. Didn’t even invite her at first. She’d just had a baby. We’d planned the hike before Benjamin’s birth. “I want to come,” Lacy said when she heard we were hiking that Sunday.

“You just had a baby,” I reminded her.

“I want to be with the fam,” she responded. That’s what she calls us, the fam. We are family isn’t in our kids’ vocabulary. All seven say “The Fam.”

Lacy’s older sister Cami felt like I did. Worried. She watched Lacy like a hawk. So I tried not to hover too. Pictures speak louder than words so here you go.

The hike was so good for us. We laughed. We cried. We prayed. We made it to Peace Valley and experienced God’s peace that surpasses understanding.

Just a few days before reaching Peace Valley, we were saying goodbye to Benjamin. Holding our grandson for the first and last time on a dark and moonless night in a hospital locked down because of Covid. In compassion, they allowed us to slip down empty, back corridors to a secluded room to say goodbye.

Two weeks later, here we are. This morning Lacy sent me this picture of Lily holding Benjamin bear. This little bear is the same size and weight of Lily’s baby brother Benjamin now in heaven. A friend sent Lacy this precious gift of comfort. Benjamin bear sleeps in Lily’s mom and dad’s bed with mommy.

Some days I don’t have the words to share how I’m feeling about this sorrow. Another grandma is maybe holding her grandchild today because Benjamin lived and died. A life for a life. It reminds me of what Jesus did for us. It’s brutal. And beautiful. And takes my breath away.

Years ago, before I was saved, I was sitting in a Catholic Church listening to a deacon tell the story of a terrible virus that was sweeping the world. He was speaking about a mother whose child had the healing blood. “We must take the child’s blood so others can live. Everyone will perish if you do not sacrifice your child to save the world,” the mother was told. The deacon wasn’t talking about Covid. Killer viruses weren’t even on the table back then. He was talking about sin. I really didn’t want to hear it. That day in church made me deeply uncomfortable. It also terrified me.

I hated the story he was telling and I sat there weeping, holding tightly to my sixth-month-old son, Luke, our first baby boy. Tears dripped onto Luke sleeping in my lap during the service. I wasn’t a believer yet, not really, though I went to church every Sunday. I was about as dead as the church pew I warmed every week. The thought tore through my mind, I would never give my sweet son’s life to save someone else.

That’s exactly what I did, God whispered to me that day. I left that Catholic Church in tears, my knees shaking, clutching my baby close. That sermon wrecked me.

A few years later, I came to Christ and I understood why Jesus had to die for the virus of sin. This virus was in my blood. The cross became personal to me. But I never thought God would take a beloved baby from us and use our baby’s heart valve to save someone else’s baby.

Empty arms are one of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced. I keep thinking today is the day losing Benjamin won’t hurt so much. But today is not that day. Lacy is my baby and she desperately misses her baby boy. And I desperately hurt for her.

I know time will soften this blow. I know the peace of God is real. It was real the night Benjamin passed away. I felt the Lord’s presence that night. So holy. So loving. So merciful.

Our family hike was real too. That was a great day. We had to trudge along to get to a valley of peace. We had to part with some sweat and tears to make it there, but peace awaited us at the end of the day.

Our daily life is also real. The little outfits we bought for Benjamin will never be worn by him. The blankets so lovingly made will never keep Ben warm. Life is already sad and hard without becoming a sad and hard person. So many angry people these days. I just want to say from my heart to yours: Life is too short to be mad. Or sad for very long. Focus on the good. Be grateful for what is sweet in your life. Be kind. Be humble. Be quick to forgive the ones you love and your enemies too.

Life is a journey of joy and sorrow. These two realities go hand in hand for all of us, so hang onto each other. And let all the meaningless things go. You will never make enough money, buy enough stuff, post enough on social media to set the world on fire, eat enough food to calm your raging hunger, drink enough wine or milkshakes to mellow yourself out, have enough sex to fulfill the deep longings of your body and soul.

You need Jesus.

And He holds everything in his hands. Benjamin was born naked and left this world naked, just like we all will someday. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” Job 1:21.